Blackhawks News: Team Canada secures World Junior GoldVincent Pariseon January 6, 2023 at 3:55 am

The Chicago Blackhawks have to be happy with how the 2022-23 World Junior Championships shook out. They sent a few players to the tournament from their farm system and a lot of them had a lot of success.

None had more success than the four that played for Team Canada in this event. Colton Dach left the tournament early due to injury but he was still a big part of what they did in the preliminary tournament.

Canada won the Gold on Thursday night in overtime over Team Czechia. Canada went up 2-0 thanks to goals by Dylan Guenther and Shane Wright. Both of those guys are awesome NHL prospects with the Arizona Coyotes and Seattle Kraken.

The Czech team, who has been one of the best stories of the tournament, found a way to get it tied with two goals 44 seconds apart late in the third period. From there, Canada was on their heels for the rest of regulation.

Clearly, they had a good reset in the overtime intermission as they won it thanks to Guenther’s second of the game. The Golden Goal scored in overtime is always special and now Guenther has that for the rest of his life. It was an incredible moment.

The Chicago Blackhawks have four players going home with Gold Medals.

Dach watched the game from the press box as he is injured but Kevin Korchinski, Ethan del Mastro, and Nolan Allan all played in the Gold Medal-winning game. Each of them had moments where they contributed to the team’s success.

There were also a couple of other prospects playing for Canada that should be interesting to Blackhawks fans. Of course, the 2023 NHL Draft is an event that Chicago is heavily relying on to improve their rebuild.

Connor Bedard was the best player for any team in this tournament and it wasn’t even close. Team Czech clearly had a game plan for him and he was unable to collect a point but he did manage to have some shots and shot assists.

Bedard will go first overall to whatever team wins the lottery later this year. The Blackhawks would love for that to be them because he projects to be one of the best players in the NHL. He shoots like Auston Matthews while seeing the ice like Sidney Crosby. He could be very special.

Adam Fantilli was also on Team Canada. He is likely to go second overall in the 2023 NHL Draft to whoever gets the second lottery pick. He isn’t Bedard but he could be an All-Star in his own right. His tournament wasn’t as highlight-filled as Bedard but he has a lot of development ahead of him.

The Blackhawks are very happy with all of their prospects who played here and should be excited about the two players that they might get a chance to draft over the summer. This was a great tournament that went very well for Chicago fans.

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